JP3013504B2 - Toner cartridge - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a toner cartridge for an electrophotographic printer or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a method of supplying toner to a printer or a copying machine, for example, a toner cartridge in which a toner is stored in a cylindrical or rectangular container body having an open upper portion and a sheet member is adhered to the opening portion. Is used. Then, the toner cartridge is mounted on the developer accommodating portion of the printer or the copying machine, the sheet member is peeled off, and the toner can be dropped from the opening of the container body.

Further, conventionally used sheet members are made of a material which is difficult to pass air.

[0004]

However, such a conventional toner cartridge described above is a method in which a hot-melt adhesive is directly applied to four sides of a container body and then the sheet member is heat-sealed. This method has a problem in quality stability for the following reasons.

[0005] to unevenness of the adhesive is applied just adhesive strength to heat-sealed with the sheet member is generated in the four sides of the container body as a method for sealing a container body, the toner in the adhesive surface too weak and during transport vacuo Has the disadvantage of leaking.

[0006] Since the adhesive is directly applied to the four sides of the container main body, there is a disadvantage that the container is deformed and the flange portion is waved after heat sealing with a sheet member. There is a disadvantage that the fluff of the adhesive and the adhesive pieces on the four sides of the container body easily enter and toner contamination occurs.

[0007] Applying an adhesive to each of the four sides of the container body has a disadvantage that the number of steps of the bonding operation is greatly increased and the cost is extremely high. A sheet member made of polyester, polypropylene, or the like has a defect that it ruptures due to swelling due to fluctuations in air pressure without passing air.

[0008] The present inventors have conducted researches to solve such disadvantages, and as a result, have reached the present invention.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, there is provided a printer or copying machine having an opening which is detachable from a developer accommodating section and communicates with the developer accommodating section via an adhesive.
Te sealed with the sheet member, and a toner cartridge internally replenishing toner is filled in the container main body, the contact
The sheet member to which the adhesive is applied has an air permeability of 20 to 300 seconds, and is heat-sealed to the container body by an air- permeable adhesive applied to the sheet member made of a polyolefin nonwoven fabric. It relates to a cartridge.

The container body 1 has a rectangular parallelepiped or cylindrical shape and is preferably made of paper or plastic. The plastic is preferably a polyolefin resin, a polyethylene terephthalate-based polyester resin, a vinyl chloride resin or an AS resin, but is not limited to any resin. is not.

The sheet member 2 is preferably a polyolefin non-woven fabric such as Tyvek (manufactured by DuPont) or Luxa (manufactured by Asahi Kasei Corporation). . That is,
When the toner stored in the toner cartridge absorbs moisture,
Since the chargeability of the toner is reduced, the developing ability and the transfer efficiency are reduced, and the image is deteriorated, moisture absorption of the toner must be avoided.

A hot-melt adhesive or a solvent-based adhesive made of wax and an ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer or the like is pattern-coated on the sheet member 2 with a film thickness of about 60 μm, or an emulsion-based adhesive such as an ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer is used. By applying the agent, the air permeability of the sheet member 2 can be maintained.

The air permeability of the sheet member 2 is measured according to JIS.
It was measured by the air permeability test method of paper and paperboard of P8117. The outline of the measuring method is as follows.
It was cut into the above size and measured according to JIS.
As the measured value, the average number of seconds required to pass through the sheet member 2 having an area of 645 mm ² was defined as the air permeability. The usable range is 4 to 300 seconds, and a particularly preferable range is 4 to 200 seconds.
Seconds, and it was determined that there was no air permeability for 1000 seconds or more.
(Air permeability tester: manufactured by Kumagaya Riki Kogyo Co., Ltd.) In order to heat seal the sheet member 2 to the container body 1, a temperature of 80 to 150 ° C., a pressure of 0.5 to 10 kg / cm ² , and a time of 0.5 to 5 hours Preferably, it is seconds.

[0014]

【Example】

Example 1 A container body 1 made of polypropylene shown in FIG. 1 was mounted on a sealing machine, and a polyethylene sheet (Tyvek 1) was previously prepared.
073B; manufactured by Deppon Co., Ltd., thickness: 200 μm) and the sheet member 2 shown in FIG. 2 coated with an ethylene-vinyl acetate emulsion-based adhesive is placed thereon, and the sealing temperature is 155 ° C. and the pressure is 18 kg / c.
Heat sealing was performed at m ² for 2 seconds. Silicon was used as the material of the blade of this sealing machine.

The air permeability of the sheet member 2 is 40 to 40.
50 seconds. Example 2 The container body 1 made of polypropylene was mounted on a sealing machine, and a polyethylene sheet (Tyvek 1073B;
A sheet member 2 having a hot melt adhesive pattern-coated thereon is placed on a Depton company, thickness 200 μm).
Heat sealing was performed at a sealing temperature of 115 ° C., a pressure of 6 kg / cm ² , and a sealing time of 2.5 seconds. Aluminum blade was used as the material of the blade of this sealing machine.

The air permeability of the sheet member 2 is 20 to 20.
30 seconds. The following experiment was performed with the obtained toner cartridge. A peeling test was conducted as a mounting test on the printer, and a vibration test, a decompression test, a drop test, and a high-temperature / high-humidity stability test were conducted as logistics, transportation, and environmental experiments. The test was performed using 10 points each.

Peeling Test The toner cartridge was mounted on a printer, and the sheet member 2 was slowly peeled from the container body 1. The peeling speed was about 300 mm / min.

Vibration test The vibration test was carried out using a vibration tester while changing the frequency from 5 to 200 Hz at an acceleration of 0.51 G in a cycle of 15 minutes.
The measurement was performed for one hour in each of the x, y, and z directions. (JI
S-Z0232) Decompression test The decompression test was performed twice at 0 to -600 mmHg.

The test method was as follows. A container was placed in a decompression device, and the pressure was reduced from -760 mmHg to -600 mmHg over 1.5 minutes.
, And allowed to stand for 11 minutes, then returned to normal pressure in 8 minutes.

Drop Test In the drop test, a drop test was performed under a normal temperature environment with the toner cartridge packed in a predetermined package. Drop height is 9
0 cm, the falling surface was concrete, and the surface was dropped 10 times in total in the order of 1 corner, 3 ridges and 6 surfaces. (JIS-Z0202) High-temperature and high-humidity stability test The high-temperature and high-humidity stability test is performed by using a sample container at 50 ° C / 85.
It was left for one week in an environment of% RH. afterwards,
Was tested.

Various tests were conducted under the above conditions. In each of the tests, the sheet member 2 was lifted from the container body 1 and no peeling occurred, and there was no leakage of the toner from the toner cartridge.

Comparative Example 1 A polypropylene container main body 1 was mounted on a sealing machine, and a hot-melt adhesive was uniformly applied to four sides of the main body. A polyethylene sheet of non-woven cloth (Tyvek 1073B; manufactured by Deppon, thickness 200 μm) and seal temperature 11
Sealing was performed at 5 ° C., a pressure of 6 kg / cm ² , and a sealing time of 2.5 seconds. Aluminum blade was used as the material of the blade of this sealing machine.

The air permeability of the polyethylene sheet is as follows:
5 to 10 seconds. Comparative Example 2 The container body 1 made of polypropylene was mounted on a sealing machine, a hot-melt adhesive was uniformly applied to four sides of the main body, and a non-breathable polyester sheet was placed thereon.
Heat sealing was performed at 5 ° C., a pressure of 6 kg / cm ² , and a sealing time of 2.5 seconds. Aluminum blade was used as the material of the blade of this sealing machine.

The polyethylene sheet had no air permeability. An experiment was carried out on the obtained toner cartridge in the same manner as in the example. This result is
It is shown in the table. From these results, when the toner cartridge of the present invention is used, there is no toner leakage, no swelling under reduced pressure, the sheet can be easily peeled off, and there is no glue residue or sheet peeling off, and an extremely good toner cartridge can be obtained. It can be understood that it is done. In addition, the bonding process also resulted in a three-fold increase in capacity.

[0025]

[Table 1]

1. Good means 1 out of 10 test samples
There were no problems. 2. Defective * 1 means 7 out of 10 test samples and 3 had no problem. Defective means that the polyethylene sheet remained at the corner of the container after the peel test. (Delamination) 3. Bad * 2 means that toner was slightly emitted from two out of ten test samples. 4. In the case of defective * 3, 10 out of 10 test samples were damaged, and none of them had no problem. 5. In the case of defective * 4, 10 out of 10 test samples were damaged, and none of them had no problem. The test was carried out in the same manner after the environmental test as to 6, * 5. Peeling test 8 out of 10 test samples were defective, and 2 had no problem. In the vibration test, toner was slightly emitted from three out of ten test samples. In the drop test, 10 out of 10 test samples were damaged, and none of them was satisfactory. Also, the pressure reduction test was good. 7 and defective * 6 were similarly tested after the environmental test. Decompression test 10 out of 10 test samples were damaged,
Nothing was fine. Other tests were fine.

[0027]

According to the present invention, the adhesive is applied to the air-permeable sheet member 2 and the air-permeable sheet member 2 is heat-sealed to the container body 1 so that the adhesiveness and peeling-off can be achieved. Since the toner cartridge has good properties, does not leak toner, and has air permeability even under low pressure, it is possible to obtain a toner cartridge which does not swell or burst.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of a container body according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view showing an example of a sheet member according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an example of a toner cartridge according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a state in which a sheet member is peeled off in the toner cartridge according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 container body 2 sheet member

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-1-250975 (JP, A) JP-A-2-169233 (JP, A) JP-A 4-79365 (JP, U) JP-A 55- 85831 (JP, U) (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G03G 15/08

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] An opening which is detachable from a developer accommodating portion of a printer or a copier, and an opening communicating with the developer accommodating portion is sealed via an adhesive of a sheet member. A toner cartridge filled with replenishing toner, wherein the sheet member coated with the adhesive has an air permeability of 20 to 300 seconds, and a polyolefin
A toner cartridge, which is heat-sealed to a container body by a gas- permeable adhesive applied to a sheet member made of a nonwoven fabric . 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the adhesive is a hot melt type or an emuljo
2. The toner cartridge according to claim 1, which is a toner-based or solvent-based toner cartridge.
Di. 3. The air permeable adhesive is ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer
3. The method according to claim 1, which is an air-permeable adhesive made of a united product.
Ner cartridge . 4. An adhesive is applied to the entire surface of the sheet member.
The toner cartridge according to claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein